For large retail, big cities like Milan are the privileged places for analysing the places where the first supermarkets are located. Architects and designers work together with new specialists: sales agents, "space planners" and above all advertisers. Some magazines are dedicated on self-service sales. The relationship between the design of the shops, the advertising and the brand image of the emerging supermarkets will start a process of redevelopment of urban centres. In the years of the boom economico, consumers will confront with a post-modern modality that designs the store as an integral part of the brand image. While architects and urban planners begin to discuss about the relationships between urban planning and trade in historic centres, the insertion of commercial functions in old urban structures and the vitality and preservation of the historic centres in themselves.
Keywords: Supermarkets, self-service, large retail, commercial urbanism.